South Korean crypto firm accidentally sends US$44 billion in bitcoins to users
SEOUL, Feb 7 — South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb said yesterday it had accidentally given away more than US$40 billion (about RM158 billion) worth of bitcoins to customers as promotional rewards, triggering a sharp sell-off on the exchange.
It had restricted trading and withdrawals for the 695 affected customers within 35 minutes of the erroneous distribution yesterday.
The exchange had planned to distribute small cash rewards of 2,000 Korean won (RM5.37) or more to each user as part of a promotional event, but winners received at least 2,000 bitcoins each instead, media reports said.
“We would like to make it clear that this incident is unrelated to external hacking or security…
